But what appeared to really irk the Journal’s conservative board –long critical of the subsidies – was the way Gingrich singled their position out as "just plain flat intellectually wrong" in a speech he gave last Tuesday to a renewable fuels summit in Des Moines.

"Obviously big urban newspapers want to kill it because it's working, and you wonder, 'W]what are their values?'" the editorial recounted Gingrich saying.

The Journal also blasted Gingrich for supporting George W. Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit and for suggesting he could support government mandates for flex-fuel vehicles.

“The Georgian has been campaigning in the tea party age as a fierce critic of spending and government, but his record on that score is, well, mixed,” the editorial said. “Some pandering is inevitable in presidential politics, but, befitting a college professor, Mr. Gingrich insists on portraying his low vote-buying as high ‘intellectual’ policy. This doesn't bode well for his judgment as a president.”

The ethanol boondoggle is one of the more egregious scams going. Gingrich is a joke.

As much as I admire his intelligence, and what he did for the country under Clinton, he has his fingers in too many pies....and you are 100% correct....Ethanol is a scam....ask any mechanic who has had to fix the damage done to gasoline motors....it is not a good fuel source; it is very expensive to make; corn prices are skyrocketing and it will not solve our problems.

As much as I admire his intelligence, and what he did for the country under Clinton, he has his fingers in too many pies....and you are 100% correct....Ethanol is a scam....ask any mechanic who has had to fix the damage done to gasoline motors....it is not a good fuel source; it is very expensive to make; corn prices are skyrocketing and it will not solve our problems.

ethanol does not cause damage if you set your computer right ... it is less expensive than gas and corn prices are not skyrocketing .... it is not meant to be the sole solution for energy

i thought conservatives were the smart ones ... sounds like you know nothing about ethanol

Ethanol can make a engine run rough and create odors. If it can't make it in the market now, then let it die. Bio Diesel is much more promising. Sugar ethanol is more promising, but it too should not get subsidies.

Maybe Gingrich can issue cornpone shares. I am sure that the right reverend has great ethanol refineries to sell us. Now West Virginia could have some better ideas.... It can all be sponsored by the 750 club.

Ethanol is crap fuel. The riots are in part a result of the stupid move by Obama to remove corn from the food supply, by increasing the amount of engine destroying, mileage reducing ethanol in gasoline, which has driven up food prices. 25 dollar a loaf bread in Egypt, started the riots. Thanks Obama.

Say it ain't so, Newt... and I thought you were the smartest guy out there! Even Al Gore now admits that ethanol has been a mistake. AL GORE! Either you're not as smart as I thought you were, or you are a political sellout. Neither option is acceptable.

Ethanol subisidies are wrong on so many levels: It takes more energy to make than it produces. It wastes a tremendous amount of water (an increasingly precious resource). It decreases fuel efficiency and damages car engines. When we mandate its use we are adding to already problematic food shortages worldwide, in addtion to driving up the price of food in a time when inflation in food prices are causing global instability (hello Tunisia and Egypt). It is just one more factor that could push us over the edge to massive inflation (on top of printing vast amounts of money). And, of course, we're again spending money we don't have to subsidize its use. Does Iowa really have to be this important to our presidential selection process that all these politicians have to prostitute themselves to court votes there? This is luncacy!

Newt, I'm moving on to other conservatives. Hope they'll have the courage of their convictions. I'm done with you.

The riots are in part a result of the stupid move by Obama to remove corn from the food supply, by increasing the amount of engine destroying, mileage reducing ethanol in gasoline, which has driven up food prices. 25 dollar a loaf bread in Egypt, started the riots. Thanks Obama.

I know facts disrupt your hate, but the fact is that corn-ethanol subsidies were in pace before Obama.

Most subsidies should go. Farm subsidies should have an acreage or income cap so they help only small farmers, not agr-busineeses, and no subsidies for corn-ethanol.

President Obama in his recent SOTU address said that "this is our generation's sputnik moment" referring to the need to use science and technology to develop cheaper clean energy (among other things). It seems the Chinese were listening because last week they announced a focussed effort to achieve technological leadership in thorium molten salt reactors.

(partial google translation) "Yesterday, as the Chinese Academy of Sciences started the first one of the strategic leader in science and technology projects, "the future of advanced nuclear fission energy - nuclear energy, thorium-based molten salt reactor system" project was officially launched. The scientific goal is to use 20 years or so, developed a new generation of nuclear energy systems, all the technical level reached in the trial and have all intellectual property rights."